Perhaps it isn't, but this reads like a call for universal recording available to all students.
Some academic colleagues do not accept that universal lecture recording
will improve all students' experience, and argue that it is killing lectures. If the consequence of the availability of recordings is that students stop attending, it changes the experience for all concerned. Thise who still attend may find the experience becomes
increasingly lifeless while I've come across students who are taking many hours taking verbatim notes from recordings, treating them as considered texts like published books rather than as introductions to subjects and concepts with which they should actively
engage.
All of this is not to deny that some staff will use such arguments as an excuse to resist reasonable adjustments. It may also be that lecture capture software is a better solution than individual recorders (- I say this from a school which has been recording
core modules and many options for many years). However I am assured by education academics that there are real issues of pedagogy and legal academic colleagues believe there are real issues about intellectual property.
Paul (in a personal capacity)
This is a slightly different point, but I am amazed / appalled that we are still having to use the DSA and our own departmental budgets to pay for recording devices when in 2013 it is perfectly possible for all
lectures to be recorded automatically and made available via lecture capture systems.
(I understand this wouldn't completely replace the need for digital recorders as some students would want to record tutorials or use them as an aide-memoire).
I am trying to get my own institution to make it if not compulsory then certainly "strongly recommended" that teaching staff consent to having all of their lecture sessions recorded using the lecture capture systems we have invested in, as it will improve all
students' experience, but particularly that of disabled students. Given how much students pay in tuition fees now it is antediluvian that as a sector we are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on buying recording devices when we could be providing
podcasts etc. of most lectures.
